Wednesday, September 30, 2020

An Inspiring Mystery


Tomorrow my May Days Facebook writing...I guess we could say binge group...begins its annual October effort. October May Days, if you will. After spending the summer on flash writing and the last four weeks or so on submissions, I plan to spend OctoMay Days on my YA mystery. Then keep going on to a NaNoWriMo-ish four weeks on the same project.

So it makes a world of sense that I would write today about One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus, because when I read the first chapter this summer, I said to myself, "Self, you've got to change the first chapter of your mystery. Get right to the point, Gail, like Karen does."

My many, many blog readers know that I am not a fan of alternating points of view and romance in genre. The first slows down the narrative drive, and the second is usually a distraction. It rarely supports the main story. This book had both these things. And, yet, I liked it.

In addition to liking the basic story, I thought McManus did some interesting things with some stock YA characters. One of Us is Lying is a book that received a lot of attention and deservedly so.

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